The Apocalypse Must Be Upon Us
When Carlos Crawford gives up 10 runs in a game, you can always say, “Well, that’s Carlos Crawford.”
But what do you say when Rick Aguilera gives up 10 runs in a game? And Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine give up 16 runs in 24 hours? You say, “Whoa. This darned sport is out of control.”
It is, too - and we have one of the most outrageous weeks in box-score history to prove it. So it’s time to relive them - in all their glory. Or is that “gory?”
We’re even calling in our own color commentator, “Week in Review” legend Jim Deshaies, last seen compiling the highest ERA (20.25) in Phillies history last year. He knows all about big numbers.
That 20.25 ERA drove Deshaies directly to retirement, which he is spending in beautiful downtown Massena, N.Y.
“Some guys retire,” he said. “Other guys fade away. I’m a fader. But you know, I’m really surprised baseball has gone on without me. I thought it would come to a screeching halt.”
Well, he was half-right. There has been plenty of screeching - mostly from these pitchers:
Tim Wakefield. At Chicago on Monday, the Boston knuckleballer’s line was: 8 IP, 16 H, 8 R, 6 ER, 3 BB, 0 K, 1 HR, 1 PB, and an insane 162 pitches.
Fun fact: According to Stats Inc., no one has allowed more hits since Houston’s Bob Forsch threw an 18-hitter - “in relief” - on Aug. 3, 1989. (Forsch’s great line: 7 IP, 18 H, 10 R, 10 ER, 0 BB, 3 K).
Wakefield said: “I felt like I had pretty good stuff.” (Really.) Deshaies said: “One question begs to be asked, and this is the scary thing about baseball today: Did he win or lose?” (The White Sox won, 8-2.)
Maddux and Glavine. The Braves’ aces are still having nightmares about their back-to-back starts last weekend in Denver:
Maddux: 3-1/3 IP, 11 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 1 BB, 1 K.
Glavine: 5 IP, 12 H, 9 R, 7 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 2 HR.
Fun fact: Maddux gave up more runs in 3-1/3 innings (seven) than he had allowed in his final eight starts last year put together (five). He had gone 200 straight starts without allowing seven runs.
John Smoltz said (when asked the next day what he thought about having to start in the same park after those two outings): “I was dreaming we had a rainout and we were on our way to New York.”
Deshaies said: “Guys like me feel vindicated when stuff like that happens to guys like Maddux. It means on any given day, I can pitch with the champion.”
Rick Aguilera. The Minnesota Twin’s line against Seattle on Tuesday: 3 IP, 10 H, 10 R, 9 ER, 1 BB, 0 K, 1 HR.
Fun fact: Aguilera allowed almost as many runs in three innings (10) as he did all last season (16).
Aguilera said: “I can’t, and I won’t, make any excuse.”
Deshaies said: “It’s the Metrodome. It’s the American League. It’s the Mariners. It’s the planet Earth. It’s the relative humidity. It’s the flubber in the baseballs. It’s all the conspiracies, all the normal stuff.”
It was a great week for the conspiracists, too - because four other pitchers also gave up at least nine runs in a game: Crawford (Phillies), Mike Mussina (Orioles), Daryl Kile (Astros) and Ken Hill (Rangers). What does all that mean? Our color man has it figured.
“These are the best guys in the game,” Deshaies said, “so it’s time to change the rules. How about: As the velocity of your fastball decreases, the strike zone increases?
“It would be kind of like a handicap in golf. Before the game, they’d ask: ‘How hard are you gonna throw today?’ You say 87, and they say, ‘OK, here’s your zone.’ And if you go over 87, a beep goes off and they move it in. It’s gotta be done.”
Or, then again, maybe not.
Fog-up of the week
In Chicago, they have two baseball teams. They have their Cubs. They have their White Sox. And one is not allowed to outdo the other, without express permission from Michael Jordan.
Well, now that competition has gone too far. Last month, the White Sox played a fun-filled game in which everyone and everything disappeared into a massive fog. In order to keep up, the Cubs also fogged themselves into invisibility, June 8 against the Expos.
How foggy was it? So foggy that the great Harry Caray leaned out of his broadcast booth before his rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and told the crowd: “I can’t see you - but let’s hear you.”
How foggy was it? So foggy that TV viewers in WGN Land couldn’t tell whether they were watching a Cubs game or the Weather Channel. “Yeah,” said outfielder Luis Gonzalez. “it was a great radio day.”
How foggy was it? So foggy that Montreal’s Mike Lansing hit a popup behind first base, three Cubs converged where they were hoping it might descend, and about all they could do after that was debate whether it was really true that what goes up must come down. Eventually, the ball did - for a 97-foot double.
“It was like being in the Metrodome,” said first baseman Mark Grace, making the first comparison between Wrigley Field and a park with a trash bag for a right-field fence. “All you could think was, ‘Where the hell did the ball go?”’
In a way, it was fitting for the Cubs to play a little fog-ball, because they’ve had a meteorological nightmare of a season.
“I’ll tell you,” third baseman Dave Magadan said, “this weather in Chicago gives me a new appreciation for the Astrodome.”
Mystery hitters of the week
It’s official. The ball must be juiced. Even those American League pitchers are starting to hit like Tony Gwynn.
First, Roger Clemens thumped a momentous single two weeks ago. Then Angels pitcher Ryan Hancock did his Rex Hudler imitation and clunked a 13th-inning single against the Indians last Sunday.
These sensational blows gave the hot-hitting A.L. hurlers their first multi-hit season since the Watergate summer of 1974. And Hancock’s hit was just the half of it:
Before this game, Hancock had pitched to one batter in his major-league career. Then, in one day, he got his first hit, scored the winning run, made a diving catch of a bunt by Kenny Lofton and started a game-saving double play, and collected his first big-league win.
“Do you think the Bulls will call him up for the last two games of their series?” wondered teammate Mike Aldrete.
Hancock on the pitch he hit, from the semi-unhittable Julian Tavarez: “It was a fastball up. Shoot, maybe it was a slider. I don’t know. I wouldn’t know what the difference is.”
Hancock wasn’t even the only pitcher to bat in this game. Angels closer Troy Percival also hit - and whiffed in the 10th. Which, according to the Elias Sports Bureau’s Bob Rosen, made this just the fourth A.L. game in the last 20 years in which you got two pitchers batting for the price of none.
Here’s Percival, a converted catcher, on his at-bat against Eric Plunk: “The guy’s throwing about a million miles an hour. He puts two pitches on the outside corner - and I thought they were coming at my face.”
Unlike Hancock, Percival wasn’t allowed to swing. With Tim Salmon on first, manager Marcel Lachemann sent Percival up with strict instructions to bunt. Whereupon Percival mysteriously stomped right up to confer with third-base coach Rick Burleson.
“I asked him if I could slash,” Percival told the Orange County Register’s Jeff Miller. “He told me no. I don’t think they found much humor in that comment.”
Appall-stars of the week
Again this week, we’re building momentum toward the All-Star Game with another “Week in Review” all-star team.
In honor of Marge Schott, here’s the All-Bad-Guy Team, as selected by our guest legend, the great Don Carman:
First base: Pete Rose. “Voted in overwhelmingly by his prison baseball team.”
Second base: Billy Martin. “I originally made him the manager,” Carman said, “but Steinbrenner fired him.”
Shortstop: Dale Berra. “He followed his dad’s advice: He made too many wrong mistakes. He came to a fork in the road - and he took it. And his career wasn’t over till it was over.”
Third base: Tony Phillips. “Not exactly a fan favorite, but who cares? This team wouldn’t have any fans.”
Catcher: Rickey Henderson. “I know he can’t catch. But the only rule on this team is, the biggest whiner has to catch.”
Outfield: Shoeless Joe Jackson. “We built this team, and he came.”
Outfield: Albert (Fan-Hitting, Bat-Corking, Photographer-Plunking, Fernando Vina-Bashing, Hannah Storm-ing) Belle. “Why is he on the team? See above.”
Outfield: Ty Cobb. “He was such a bad guy, he makes Albert Belle look like Kirby Puckett.”
Starting pitcher: Denny McLain. “I’m not sure about this, but I hear his problems started when he mistook his all-star ballot for his IRS short form.”
Relief pitcher: Pascual Perez. “I just sent him a letter: ‘Dear Pascual. Congratulations on making the team. Enclosed you’ll find your contract and, as usual, a map to the ballpark.”’ Owner: Schott. “Everybody knows she was on the all-good-guy team at the beginning, but she just went too far.”
Finally, Carman’s scouting report on his team: “Notorious bad-ball hitters. Will steal at any time. Can’t pitch out of trouble.”